5 Apr
2003
5 Apr
'03
1:06 p.m.
Hi again. Well, doing a resume for my own control, and considering
it of interest for everybody, I proceed to send it to the list, with the
permission of the moderator.
We speak about one HP9000/380 with this characteristics:
One A1416A board
One HP 98574 board with... TWO memory chips
Actually, the machine don't have peripherals connected.
I have actually one HP-IB Hard Disk, one HP-IB 5.25 floppy disk,
one HP-IB streamer, and I have the opportunity to acquire one
HP9885 8" floppy disk unit. This last device has couple of back connectors;
one of 50 pin and another one of 37 pin. In appeareance, the HP9000/380
don't have this connectors available. The connector more similar to this
needed
to our purposes, like we shall see later, is one wide centronics connector
with a legend above: "SCSI/ HS HP-IB". I don't have serial terminal,
keyboard, mouse or graphic terminal.
Said this, I have some questions about the machine and its peripherals.
Here we go:
CAN I ATTACH AND USE ONE HP9885 WITH ONE HP9000/380 ?
Joe->
Yes it CAN be attached. You'd have to use the GPIO
interface
and probably have to write you're own drivers. The GPIO interface
is the nearest thing to the original interface (HP 98034 option 85 IIRC)
for the 9885. I THINK I remember that HP did make an 9885 interface
for the early 9000 200 series computers but I don't remember the details.
The original interface for the 9885 is a 16 bit parallel interface,
it is NOT SASI or SCSI.
Tony->
The DD50 is not SCSI (or SASI). It's an HP 16 bit
interface, and was
originally connected to something like a 98032 Opt 085 (GPIO interface
with the right jumpers and cable) in a 9825/9835/9845 machine. I guess it
can be used with other GPIO-like interfaces (but be warned it uses
features of the 98032, like DMA transfers and the register select
outputs, that may not be available on other GPIOs).
The DC37 is the 'raw' drive bus (similar to an
SA800 interface) and is
used to hang 'slave' drives off the controller in this unit.
Joe->
I have several 9885 units. That "SCSI"
connector
is the standard connector that HP uses for GPIO.
CAN BE ONE WIDE CENTRONICS CONNECTOR IN THE BACK
OF THE HP9000/380 WITH THE LEGEND "SCSI/HS HP-IB"
A GPIO PORT ?
Robert->
Unless an optional board is installed, the wide
Centronics-like connector
is
SCSI. It's pretty easy to tell if it's in
there, it lives on a set of
standoffs right behind the connector, and the ribbon cable moves from the
mail board to it.
Joe->
I don't have a 380 any more so I'll tell you
as best as I remember.
If the wide 50 pin port is built into the machine it's probably a serial
port.
A lot of the HP's had those built in. If it's
on a card then it may be
GPIO
but if so it should be clearly marked as much.
SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE GPIO BOARD FOR THE HP9000
Joe->
[...] But it fits the DIO slot as used on the 9000 200
series and some of
the
300 series. You're 380 has DIO-II slots which are
wider. It MAY have
the adapter that converts the DIO-II to DIO slots but that's something
that you need to check on.
Besides the difference in width, the two cards use different connectors.
The 200 series cards have card edge connectors and the DIO-II cards
have VME type connector. I think some people also call these
Euro connectors.
Joe->
If the port on your machine is GPIO and you are
running HP BASIC
then you don't need anything to manage it except for the binary driver
file.
If you do a LIST BIN. It will tell you all of the
driver files that are
loaded.
I'm guessing that there's a good chance that
you're not running BASIC
on a 380. If you're not, then let me know what you're running and I'll try
to find out if you need a driver and what it's name is.
Let me explain further. If you are running BASIC and
have
the necessary BIN file loaded then you can control the GPIO port
much like you'd control an Intel 8255. You can access it's internal
registers,
set each I/O line as 0 or 1 for logic true, st each as
input, output or
both.
You can also set characteristics for the hand shaking
lines and
interrupts.
But you still won't have any high level DOS type
commands to access
the disk drive (no read, write, save, load commands). I'm not sure
but there MAY be a BIN file that you can load that may give you
those commands. Bt even if you can do that, you'll still need to figure
out
the connectiosn between the GPIO interface and the
9885
HOW CAN I UPGRADE ONE HP9000/380 TO ONE HP9000/385 ?
BTW, a 380 can be upgraded to a 385 (33 MHz) with a
osc change (socketed!)
and a jumper moved. The '040 in mine has no trouble running at 33MHz, and
I
just picked up 16MB of RAM for it (Thanks, Jim!).
HP9000/380 GRAPHIC MONITORS
Robert ->
My 380 has an A1416A Kathmandu (a.k.a. Color VRX)
(1280x1024 @ 60 hz, 8
bits, DIO-II). It has 3 BNC sync on green output, you'll need either an
adapter to a VGA monitor or a monitor with 3 BNC.
Joe ->
There are a whole range of video/graphics options for
the 300 series.
Also on a lot of them you can also use a terminal connected to the serial
port.
One word of caution, you need the correct monitor to
work with the card
that you have.
It's gets tricky trying to find both a monitor and
video card that work
together.
I'm currently using an ADC super VGA monitor that
has both the VGA port
and BNC ports.
IIRC it works with both the 98543 and 98547 video
cards. I have a whole
slew
of HP viedo cards and monitors around but I'm
trying to get away from
having
to have a special monitor for each computer.
WHERE CAN I LOCATE ONE 3 BNC ADAPTER TO A VGA MONITOR ?
John->
I had this problem a while back, and wired up my own
cable. The simplest solution yet found (suggested on
this list) is to combine an HD15male/BNC cable and a
HD15female/HD15female gender changer. A cable like
this in a single piece I have not yet found.
BTW, anybody know the signals on _HD26_ video
WHAT MODEL OF SERIAL TERMINAL CAN I USE WITH ONE
HP9000/380 ?
Robert->
Any null-modem cable to a peasea set to 9600,8N1
should work. Note,
however, that the serial console (vs the graphics head/HIL keyboard) is
selected by a firmware command. The commands can be entered blindly
without a monitor attached, but a HP-HIL keyboard *MUST* be used
if it is not set to a serial console already.
WHAT'S ABOUT ONE HP-IB TERMINAL ?
Joe->
I've never heard of one. Does anyone make one?
I'm pretty sure all of HP's are RS-232.
WHERE CAN I FIND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ?
Robert->
You can find some more info on the page for the hp300
port of NetBSD,
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/hp300, and Jim Conrad may have some parts
avaliable, you can find his original post in the classiccmp archives,
http://www.classiccmp.org.
WHAT IS ONE 34-PIN CONNECTOR IN THE HP 98574 BOARD ?
MAYBE A FLOPPY CONNECTOR ?
Joe ->
I don't have a HP catalog any more so I'm not
sure what a 98574 is
but if it's a video card then the connector is probably for a daughter
board
with more video RAM. That's pretty common on the
HPs. I DOUBT
that it's for a floppy drive even if it's not on the video card.
WHAT'S ABOUT ONE EIGHT DIP-SWITCHES BANK IN THE
A1416A BOARD ?
No answer yet :-)
Best Regards
Sergio